10 TVs or 89 cushions: Whose interior style reigns supreme at your place?

It would be fair to say that I live in my wife’s dream house, and that if I asked her to even attempt to swap places and turn our abode into my personal vision of splendid, she would divorce me faster than you could say “pinball machine” or “man cave”.

Obviously – and I learned this many moons ago when sharing houses with partners who did ditch me – some women and men tend to like and seek different things in life, but it is remarkable to compare the features that our house would have, but definitively does not, if it were up to me, and the way it looks in reality.

If I were allowed free rein there would be a beautiful and stylish pool table on our back deck. I’m not a heathen, of course, so I’d be willing to have one that could cleverly convert itself into an outdoor dining table on those rare occasions that such formality was required. 

Yes, I would prefer to have said pool table in the dining room, or even the lounge room, but I have learned that there is simply no more important word in the English language than “compromise”.

I would also very much like to have a pinball machine somewhere on our property, just one, preferably a Kiss-branded example, although I accept that they are, bizarrely and inexplicably, expensive. Again, I think the kitchen would be a fine place for such a device, around which the family could gather and spend many happy yet competitive hours together. 

And again, because I’m a reasonable and heartily compromising man, I’d even be happy to keep it in the garage, if that’s all I could get. 

Or, it could go in the bar that I’d also very much like to have constructed in the backyard, right next to one of those sit-down game consoles that make you feel like you’re in an episode of Stranger Things. 

Remarkably – and I’m sure at least some of the readers will agree that this is unfair – my wife is against all of these things, while also protesting my insistence that our home could be much improved by the addition of television screens in the kitchen, the hallway, our bedroom, any other bedroom, the study and perhaps one bathroom.

It has been politely pointed out to me that if this level of tele-vangelism is my heartfelt desire then I should marry someone else instead.

And what would my dearly beloved choose to fill our house with, instead of televisions, pool cues, bar towels and pinging pinballs? In a word, cushions. 

Yes, we already have cushions – 89 of them by last count. So many that they are now covering not only every couch-like surface in the house but every bed, chair and blade of grass as well. Open a cupboard a little too quickly and you’re likely to be covered in them. My concern is that her mid-term goal is to have so many cushions, of such varied shapes and sizes, that traversing our house will be like walking through an overly large and deep ball pit, albeit a squishy one.

She’s also become quite fond of side tables and lamps of late, which has led me to seriously consider whether it would actually be possible for the male and female of our species to be any more different in our domestic desires.

Shall I compare a cushion to a pinball machine or a pool table? No, because there is no comparison to be made – one is a source of joy, pride and pleasure, the other is a ball of fluff with a washable cover that I’m not allowed to touch if I’ve just eaten pizza.

It’s also fiendishly hard to argue against cushions because, next to pool tables, they’re actually quite cheap. 

I realise that I should set myself more realistic interior-decorating goals, but as a man, I’m afraid that would take more wisdom than I possess.